VERSATILITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: A CASE OF THE VISUAL ARTIST AND THE LANGUAGE ARTS EXAMPLE

This article sought to bring to the limelight the peculiarity of the Visual artist, his unique potentialities, and his overlapping functions in all spheres of human endeavours. The Visual Arts refers to what is sometimes, called the Fine and Applied Arts. While the Fine Arts are popularized by their aesthetic functions, the Applied Arts are largely utilitarian. Considerable effort has been made to showcase the ingenuity of the Visual Arts in the scheme of things, which has invariably adjudged him versatile. Consequently, the integrating influence of the Visual Arts on all facets of our educational development and national life has been established. Visual Arts is a springboard to other professions, a sine quanon as its knowledge is indispensable in the study of other disciplines. The knowledge of Visual Arts is also an added advantage to a good number of professions such as; architecture, engineering, medicine, geography etc. At least, the knowledge of Drawing is required across the aforementioned professional areas, while design knowledge is required for a number of those professions to thrive. Having pointed out some of the overlapping functions of Visual Arts, the personality of the artist becomes glaring. Furthermore, the article has considered major areas of versatility displayed by the Visual Artist. In this attempt, a case study of the language Arts has been presented to further drive home and substantiate the claim for the artist’s versatility in our changing society.